Letters Show Thief Knew Value Of the Quedlinburg Treasures

By WILLIAM H. HONAN

Published: September 3, 1994

An American Army lieutenant's letters home from Germany in 1945 describing his involvement in one of the greatest art thefts of the century go far to answer questions raised in the legal battle and subsequent negotiations that led to the return of the so-called Quedlinburg treasure to Germany in 1992.

"Are my packages getting home? I have sent quite a few," wrote Lieut. Joe Tom Meador in a letter to his parents dated June 17, 1945, two months after a collection of 10 priceless medieval church treasures disappeared from a closely guarded cave on the outskirts of Quedlinburg in central Germany. The Nazi Government had hidden them there for safekeeping during World War II.

"There are two that I want to know about for sure," he continued. "One is a box that contains a book, the cover of the book has a statue of Christ on it. By all means, if it gets home take extra good care of it. I have an idea that the cover is pure gold and the jewels on the cover are emeralds, jade and pearls. Don't ask me where I got it! But it could possibly be very very valuable."

Lieutenant Meador's identity as the Quedlinburg thief was disclosed by The New York Times in June 1990. Lawyers representing the Government of West Germany and the owner of the treasure, the cathedral called the Stiftskirche Domgemeinde Quedlinburg, promptly filed suit in Federal District Court in Dallas to recover the artworks. Letters Are Uncovered

In 1992, an out-of-court settlement between German officials and Lieutenant Meador's heirs led to the exhibition of the treasures at the Dallas Museum of Art that spring before they were returned to Germany. The next year they were exhibited before overflow crowds at the State Museum for Decorative Arts in Berlin, and last September they were finally returned to Quedlinburg.

The letters from the Quedlinburg thief to his family in Whitewright, Tex., a farm town 15 miles south of the Oklahoma border, were recently inspected by The New York Times.

They make clear that Lieutenant Meador, who studied art with his mother and taught art in the high school in New London, Tex., before entering the Army, recognized the unusual value of what he was stealing. When Lieutenant Meador's brother and sister were trying to sell the treasures after his death, they asserted that he had found them "in the gutter" and considered them of little value.

Current professional estimates of the value of the collection range from nearly $200 million to "priceless."

The letters also demonstrate that the theft of the Quedlinburg treasures by Lieutenant Meador, who died of cancer in 1980, was not an isolated indiscretion by a war-weary soldier. He mentions having sent home two moving picture projectors, camera lenses, other optical instruments and clothing. Warning to Parents

Furthermore, he cautioned his parents not to show the treasures to anyone and later confessed that he had "appropriated" the artworks "from a cave in the mountains."

The treasures had been kept for a millennium in the Schatzkammer, or treasure chamber, of the Quedlinburg cathedral. After Allied air attacks on Germany began, the treasures were moved to a cave outside of town.

Lieutenant Meador stole the treasures when his unit, the 87th Armored Field Artillery Battalion, was briefly stationed in Quedlinburg in the waning days of the fighting in Europe.

Apart from their physical beauty, the treasures have great historical importance to Germany because of their association with Heinrich I, a 10th-century Saxon ruler who united an early configuration of German-speaking states.

The most valuable item in the collection is the Samuhel Gospels, a sumptuously illustrated and illuminated ninth-century manuscript lettered with gold ink. It contains full-page paintings of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, the four Gospel scribes, which are among the earliest and best-preserved examples of early Western painting.

The other treasures include a gold, silver and ivory casket from the ninth or 10th century, a biblical manuscript dated 1513 and emblazoned with gold, silver and jewels; a liturgical ivory comb dating to the seventh or eighth century; five fancifully shaped reliquaries of cut rock crystal dating to the 10th century and a heart-shaped vessel believed to have been fashioned in the 15th century. The Loot Declines

In a letter to his parents dated July 7, 1945, Lieutenant Meador said the second medieval manuscript he had sent home was bound in solid gold covers encrusted with nearly 80 jewels. "Please store it most carefully for me as it is very valuable," he stated.

A week later, he wrote that he had sent home "a chest of the same type except the chest has a bunch of ivory inlay in it."

By Aug. 2, 1945, he was bemoaning the scarcity of easily available "loot."

"Now that the war is over it is harder to get things," he complained.

The next December, Lieutenant Meador was court-martialed and fined $600 for the theft of valuable silverware and gold-decorated china from the villa of the Marquise of St. Carlos in Biarritz, France. Although the Army investigated the theft of the Quedlinburg treasures after the war, they were not traced to Lieutenant Meador at that time.

In the out-of-court settlement in 1992, Jack Meador and Jane Meador Cook, the siblings and heirs of Lieutenant Meador, received nearly $2.75 million from the German Government for relinquishing all claim to ownership of the artworks. The case has been investigated by the Internal Revenue Service, which, according to people close to the case who spoke on condition of anonymity, is now demanding $30 million in back taxes, interest and penalties from the Meadors.

"The I.R.S. is attempting to levy a tax and we expect to have to challenge it in tax court," Randal Mathis, the Dallas lawyer who represents the Meadors, said last week.

In a book about the case published in Germany last week, Willi A. Korte, a German investigator, says he has evidence that two of the treasures are still unlawfully in the United States and held by persons other than the heirs.

He says he has sworn statements from people in the Dallas area who have been able to describe or recognize photographs of artworks long missing from Quedlinburg. These include a rock crystal flask in the shape of a bishop's cap and a gold reliquary in the form of a crucifix.

Photos: Lieut. Joe Tom Meador, above, sent the biblical manuscript from 1513 at right and other treasures to his parents from Germany in 1945. Letters to his parents at the same time indicate he knew how valuable the treasures were. (Jack Manning/The New York Times)